More African countries received the long-awaited first deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday, with Kenya and Rwanda benefiting from the global COVAX initiative aimed at securing doses for the world’s low- and middle-income countries.
African and other health officials have been frustrated by the sight of a handful of rich countries rolling out vaccines after taking large quantities for themselves.
“We will be known as the continent COVID” if Africa does not quickly reach its goal of vaccinating 60% of the population of 1.3 billion people, said the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, last week. The continent last month surpassed 100,000 confirmed deaths, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
So far, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Angola and Congo have also received their first vaccine doses via COVAX, with several other countries including Mali, Senegal, Malawi and Uganda receiving them this week.
However, COVAX has faced delays related to the severely limited global supply of vaccine doses as well as logistics issues, and COVAX alone will not provide the 54 countries in Africa with the doses needed to reach 60% population coverage to achieve so-called flock immunity. when enough people are protected by infection or vaccination to make it difficult for a virus to continue to spread.
Therefore, some countries such as South Africa, the hardest hit African nation, also carry out COVID-19 vaccines through bilateral deals or through the African Union’s bulk purchasing program.
Despite the various challenges, some health services cheered when the first doses of vaccine arrived via COVAX.
“We have fought the pandemic with rubber bullets, but what we have acquired today is, metaphorically speaking, equivalent to bazookas and machine guns,” said Kenya’s Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe. Kenya received 1.02 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute. of India.
The minister said the vaccines will be given to about 400,000 healthcare workers and the rest will go to other frontline workers such as teachers and police. Kenya, East Africa’s commercial hub, has more than 106,000 confirmed virus cases, including more than 1,800 deaths.
For many months, many health workers have been dissatisfied with the insufficient supply of personal protective equipment. They also say that they never received emission rights that the government promised them for extra work and risk when they fought COVID-19.
Rwanda received 240,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, with 102,960 Pfizer doses expected later on Wednesday. The Ministry of Health said that these first doses will be aimed at frontline workers, people over 65 and people with underlying health conditions.
Health Minister Daniel Ngamije said Rwanda’s target is to vaccinate 30% of the population by the end of this year and 60% by the end of 2022. Rwanda has registered 19,111 cases and 265 deaths.
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